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Everything Is Good
I was a low-level manager at THE most popular dine-in pizza
restaurant in the world for a few years. My “boss” at the time was a
fat lazy slob with a bad grill. There were many bad times, but one in
particular stands out to me.
It was a Friday night, which, if you have ever worked pizza, you know
is extremely busy and hectic. So I arrived for the start of my shift
like any other day and did my beginning of shift count. I asked as
always if ANYONE had called out so I would know to call someone in.
He said, “No everything is good”, and that he had even gone to the
trouble of doing the afternoon prep himself, and left the store
almost in mid-sentence.
As per usual on Friday nights, we were scheduled to have two shift
managers, and I was quite alarmed when my co-worker was 30 mins late
for her shift so I gave her a call on her cell. When she answered,
she was crying and I could barely understand her at first. She calmed
down and told me that she was in the hospital and had been involved in
a moderate impact car accident earlier in the day in which she
suffered some injuries that were going to keep her out of work for a
few days.
I asked her why she didn’t call in, and she sounded very surprised,
because she had called in around two hours before I arrived to begin
my shift. So I apologized and told her not to worry about it and that
I would take care of her shift.
As angry and manipulated as I felt, I tried to make it through an
extremely busy midsummer Friday night shift which just wasn’t working
as the night progressed. I had no one to call in except for “the boss”
so I did so, 3 times before he answered! I asked him why he lied to me
about my coworker’s car acccident and he said that he didn’t lie, he
just didn’t tell me about it becuase he thought I could handle it,
but he guessed he was wrong. So I told him to get his a@@ to his
store or I was going to leave it unattended. He said don’t I’m on my
way! and slammed down the phone.
When he arrived, we were way behind with angry customers behind the
counter and on the phone. He started making pizza and proceeded to
tell me to do my damn job. At this point I snapped, said lots of
words you are not supposed to, and threatened to leave unless I got
an apology right there in front of the entire frontline staff working
that night. He grudgingly did so and then took me aside and told me we
were going to have to have a talk about my attitude.
Shortly after this our district manager just happened to come by in
the middle of all this chaos, and when I explained to him that he
lied to me about the accident because he wanted to take off early for
the weekend and sacrificed his store’s night in the process, he told
me that he would be staying until it slowed down to have a little
chat w/ my boss.
He did so and I don’t know what was said, but afterward I got a real
(FORCED) apology and the next weekend off. It was the first time I’d
had a weekend off in almost a year! My boss may have sucked, but my
DM was great!
23 Comments to Everything Is Good
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I am so glad that worked out for you. You stayed consistent and loyal and it paid off. You were able to trump your manager and keep your job. Good for you.
Wow… Sounds like someone has some anger management issues! Your boss made a VERY poor decision and assumption, and instead of being civil about it, you went off the deep end in a hurry. Screaming expletives at your boss in front of guests is a VERY unprofessional, immature and disrespectful (to the guests) thing to do. You should have apologized to all the guests in the restaurant for your language and temper problems.
I’ve worked as a bartender/busboy/server/etc. alone on VERY busy evenings, and from my experience, people are MORE tolerant of slower service because they can see you are busting your hump and short-staffed. Sure, you will have some that don’t understand, but there are very few of them. I also doubt that “THE” most popular dine-in pizza joint only had you in there to handle everything and one person out made the place fall apart.
As soon as you heard from the co-worker that she was in an accident and couldn’t make it in, you should have been getting someone in there that second. You had the time to call her to see where she was, so you had some time to get a sub before the rush had hit.
It sounds more like you can’t handle the position of a “low-level” manager and stress out severely WAY too easily.
Wow. I’m glad you were able to make him come in. He needed to.
I’m a bit surprised that he wouldn’t have mentioned your co-worker even out of sheer concern. That makes it even worse. I mean, she was in a car accident, in the hospital, clearly scared out of her wits, and he neglects to mention any of this to you so that he can go home early? Biiiig character issues, by the sounds of it.
I hope he got reamed by the DM. I also hope he was horribly ashamed the next time he saw your co-worker, after the apparent lack of concern he showed for her predicament.
Way to go! I like reading these stories where people actually stand up for themselves!!
As a manager (low level or not) I would have fired your ass for calling me in. Regardless of what your situation is, the fact that you are in management means you should be able to handle any situation. While it sux for your boss to “lie” to you about this situation, you are still a manager. By the way, your DM sucks to. If you can’t handle a shift and have to call your boss in to help you, you suck too. Learn to manage people and stop being a cry baby. You had an opportunity to shine and show your DM what you could do as a manager with a difficult situation. This would have been something your DM would have remembered when you were going for that next promotion. Sucks for you that you blew it.
As I have been a higher level manager and business owner for over 25 years (and yes, some food service) I realize it is difficult work and it is worse when you are short handed. If I were your DM (I have been there too) I would have questioned your ability to handle my store. I would not have had an issue with your boss and I damn sure wouldn’t have expected him to appoligize to you or reward your crappy management style with a week end off. If I were your DM, I would have made sure that your boss knew he should work with you and train you to handle situations to become a stronger member of the management team. If your DM was good, he probably wanted an explanation from your boss on why you could not handle your job.
Sorry….no sympathy here….
Though it may have been a jerky move of him to not tell you the truth or even mask what he said, you acted extremely out of line and whiny in your response to that. He did come in after all.
Finally someone with balls and a story!
Well done OP
well done
sounds more like a cat fight than an actual problem.
Finally an employee with some stones.
@Ji-Jim….You seriously expect one person to take all the walk-in and call-in orders and make all the pizzas by her/himself, keep the restaurant clean and show good customer service?? Seriously doubt that can happen if it is as busy as OP explained!!
The lazy slob should have offered to stay to assist OP since the co-worker called in or at least tried calling someone else in since he knew of the situation. Helping the restaurant look better is part of MANAGEMENT!!
You said you’re in management…well by the way you talked here I wouldn’t doubt if there aren’t some stories about you on here!!!
I read some of these posts from time to time and see the same bone heads on here posting ‘advice’ or just rude comments. You losers need to find a job.
J-jim, clearly you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Im going to have to agree with Ji-Jim.
You sound a lot like a manager I had working for me in my restaurant. When someone would call in for whatever reason, instead of finding someone to cover their shift (or effectively manage the staff that were there working ) she would call me, freak out, and say “YOU BETTER COME DOWN HERE!”
The reason i hired a manager was to lighten my workload. im assuming that was the reason you were hired/promoted/in the management position.
Besides, a midsummer friday night with only one call in would hardly be enough to disturb the flow of the restaurant if you were able to manage the staff properly. If it were the middle of december you would have my sympathy, but midsummer fridays are about as profitable as a midsummer wednesday.
Sounds like you just cant handle management.
@Kay,
The OP said they didn’t have anyone but the manager to call in. While I agree that demanding the boss to come in might not be the greatest thing, they should have told OP about the coworker calling in, and even offer to help. If the OP was aware of the situation and thought they could handle everything by themselves that would be a different situation; however, the OP asked if anyone had called in, obviously thinking ahead and wanting to make arrangements to have coverage in case a co-worker called in, but the boss withheld the information that they had and lied to the OP.
Boy, this just screams of another case of someone creatively rewriting the end of the real story to make themselves feel better. Did the DM really make him apologize, or do you just wish he had?
I agree with Heywood and Ji-Jim. Being one team member down (even if it was a shift manager) should not cause you to lose complete control of the restaurant. If you can’t handle being short staffed, you can’t handle being a manager. How dare you swear at your manager in front of a crowded restaurant and demand an apology from HIM?
Kay,
Please read whole posts before you comment and go on insulting someone. First of all yes one missing employee can disrupt the whole flow of a restaurant if schedules are built around how busy the restaurant is going to be and if one person isn’t in a certain place it creates much more of a workload for everyone else, I know this because I worked for a certain fast food chicken store for quite a few years as a supervisor. Second so what if you have a manger to “lighten your workload” that doesn’t include lying to them about scheduling changes and not letting them know if someone doesn’t come in. Unless you are a franchise owner it is typically the responsibility of the manger of the previous shift to inform the incoming manager if someone has called out, is coming in late, or quit before their shift even if the outgoing manager is above the incoming one/vice versa. Yes maybe the OP should not have yelled and screamed at the Manager above them(I am assuming the General Manager) I can certainly understand their frustration and why they were so upset at being lied to and left in somewhat of a bind on a busy night.
Ji-Jim and Kay: You are both idiots. First of all, it is TOTALLY reasonable for the OP to be pissed about being lied to. It would have been a different story if the boss had said, “So-and-so can’t come in, you’ll have to be stuck here by yourself.” You don’t prep for a shift the same way if you know you’re going to be the only one there. If you’re so experienced in food service you’d know that.
Second, neither of you can possibly know whether the workload at this particular place was too much for one manager. The fact that there were supposed to be two on shift together strongly suggests that it was too much. Yes, you certainly want managers who can cope with adversity, but there are limits.
Third, responsibility rises to the top. The boss should have taken the responsibility to cover the absence, not pissed off like a coward leaving the subordinate to deal with the problem without even being notified of it. Clearly the DM understood that; the fact that you don’t causes me to fear for any poor bastards that have to work under you. Subordinates are not there to be your slaves and put up with whatever you feel like dumping on them – they are there to do their jobs and shouldn’t have to do yours as well.
As a manager myself, I’ll wager you’ve had a lot of turnover among your employees if you display this same attitude towards them.
Was it Pizza Hut?
@Kay — if the restaurant was in a summer tourist spot, that would explain the midsummer Friday madness.
Yes, it was Pizza Hut.
@ Heywood
Where did he say he “Screaming expletives at your boss in front of guests” he didn’t and you didn’t read his story or have you have zero retention. Come to think about it you do this often
@Ed
It seems your reading comprehension is lacking…
Copied directly from the story:
“At this point I snapped, said lots of words you are not supposed to…”
To me, expletives are the lots of words you are not supposed to say. Understand now? Maybe you need to reread the story or work on your retention before making a feeble attempt to flame someone.